‘Death Highway’ Is Where Oil Prices, Truck Fatalities Intersect

Route 285 is the formal designation for one of the main roads used to carry supplies to and from the oilfields of West Texas. Locals call it something else: “Death Highway.”

Last year, 93 people died in accidents involving trucks just on the Texas-side of the Permian Basin, or 43 percent more than in 2012. Want to know how many fatalities to expect moving forward? Keep an eye on the price of oil.

The number of traffic deaths involving big trucks shrank in 2015, when oil prices started to collapse. They surged last year as crude rallied, boosting the need ...